luence of the Cotton dynasty, the
whole Southern tone on this subject has undergone a change. Slavery is
no longer deplored as a necessary evil, but it is maintained as in
all respects a substantial good. One of the logical necessities of a
thorough slave-system is, in at least the slave-portion of the people,
extreme ignorance. Whatever theoretically may be desirable in this
respect among the master-class, ignorance, in its worst form,--ignorance
of everything except the use of the tools with which their work is to
be done,--is the necessary condition of the slaves. But it is said that
slaves are property, without voice or influence in the government, and
that the ignorance of the black is no obstacle to the intelligence
of the white. This possibly may be true; but a government founded on
ignorance, as the essential condition of one portion of its people, is
not likely long to regard education as its vital source and essence.
Still the assertion that the rule of education does not apply to slaves
must be allowed; for we must deal with facts as we find them; and
undoubtedly the slave has no rights which the master is bound to
respect; and in speaking of the policy of the Cotton dynasty, the
servile population must be regarded as it is, ignoring the question of
what it might be; it must be taken into consideration only as a terrible
inert mass of domesticated barbarism, and there left. The question
here is solely with the policy and tendency of the Cotton dynasty
as affecting the master-class, and the servile class is in that
consideration to be summarily disposed of as so much labor owned by so
much capital.

[Footnote A: "In truth," the institution of slavery, as an agency for
cotton-cultivation, "is an expensive luxury, a dangerous and artificial
state, and, even in a-worldly point of view, an error. The cost of a
first-class negro in the United States is about L800, and the interest
on the capital invested in and the wear and tear of this human chattel
are equal to 10 per cent., which, with the cost of maintaining,
clothing, and doctoring him, or another 5 per cent, gives an annual cost
of L45; and the pampered Coolies in the best paying of all the tropical
settlements, Trinidad, receive wages that do not exceed on an average
on the year round 6s. per week, or about two-fifths, while in the East
Indies, with perquisites, they do not receive so much as two-thirds of
this. In Cuba, the Chinese emigrants do not receive